Demo:listen: Hegemony

Welcome to Demo:listen, your weekly peek into the future of underground metal. Whether it’s death, grind, black, doom, sludge, heavy, progressive, stoner, retro, post-, etc. we’re here to bring you the latest demos from the newest bands. On this week’s Demo:listen, we’re dragged off in the dead of night by Birmingham, Alabama’s Hegemony.

With a moniker both fitting and foreboding, Hegemony are on the warpath toward total domination. The Alabaman four-piece wreak blackened-death destruction, a marauding and bestial assault that sounds like nothing else happening stateside right now. Whether they’re blasting, galloping or dirging, Hegemony move with predatory muscle, motivated by a seemingly unquenchable thirst for the brain-blood of their listeners. Recently, we caught up with Sadistic Berzerker, drummer of Hegemony, to get the lowdown on this violent horde currently terrorizing the American south-east. “Hegemony was conceptualized by Barbaric Progenitor several years ago,” Sadistic Berzerker relates. “Early noise was written but a solid lineup failed to materialize and the project was in a dormant state for some time. I approached [Progenitor] in late 2014 with the idea of reviving the band. The three demo tracks were then written and the full lineup was secured last year. We played our first show and recorded our first demo shortly after. . . . The demo was recorded and mixed in a single day in the dungeon studio of our ally J. Freemon of Hellgoat and Demonic Christ.”

At three songs that, all together, last about thirteen minutes, Hegemony’s Demo MMXVI wastes no time with intros or interludes. It’s straight to the slaughter. “No Throne Left to Topple” opens with feedback like the braying of War’s crimson horse, and as terrifying and ominous as those opening seconds are they’re also your last chance at anything like serenity before the onslaught of riffs and cruel battery begins. But total blastfiends Hegemony are not. When it comes to conquering everything within their reach, theirs is a dynamic approach. Because Hegemony are as adept at wielding giant battleaxes of doom as they are at slaying with nihilistic speed. Says Sadistic Berzerker: “Hegemony has received a strong reception.” And with cross appeal like theirs, it’s no wonder why.

Hegemony put Demo MMXVI out on tape themselves earlier this year, and recently Goatprayer Records unleashed another run of tapes, under their own sigil. Says S. Berzerker: “[Goatprayer] have proven to be a serious and legitimate label and have provided us with good support and exposure.” So fall in line, and do the same, we say. Show your support to these maniacs and pick up what’s sure to be a relic in days to come. Perhaps it will appease them when they come for you, that you were anticipating their arrival. But definitely don’t sleep on it because the dust is swelling on the horizon. Hegemony are already at work on new material.